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Tuesday, November 20, 2012

After excommunicated rogue bishop, Nolbert Kunonga -- also known as Mugabe's bishop -- broke away from the Anglican Church in 2007, he forcibly occupied and seized control of a vast array of church properties, including the cathedral in Harare, numerous churches, vicarages, schools, clinics, orphanages, offices, vehicles and bank accounts.

Kunonga, who has been linked to violence against Anglicans, including the murder of 10 clergy, has long been backed by pro-Mugabe police and ZANU-PF thugs. Anglicans suspect Kunonga of complicity in the February 2011 murder of Jessica Mandeya (89), a lay leader in the rural parish of Mashonaland East who was raped, mutilated and strangled after she refused to join Kunonga's pro-Mugabe faction. Kunonga denies any part in this, retorting that if he were going to kill anyone, it would be his nemesis, Bishop Chad Gandiya.

On 12 August 2011, Zimbabwe's Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku released an interim order confirming Bishop Chad Gandiya as the Bishop of Harare, but upholding the 24 July 2009 High Court ruling granting the illegitimate bishop, Nolbert Kunonga, control over all Anglican Church assets in Harare.

On Monday 19 November 2012, the Supreme Court upheld the appeal put forward by the Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA) and led by Bishop Chad Gandiya. It also set aside, condemning as "wrong", two judgments that had been granted in favour of the Nolbert Kunonga-led "Diocesan Trustees for the Diocese of Harare" entitling them to control of Anglican church properties.

ZLHR is advocating that immediate action be taken "to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of the violations that, for almost six years, visited Anglican Church parishioners including the disadvantaged young children at CPCA-run orphanages around the country. Such action," it said, "will have the effect of contributing positively to the restoration of public confidence in the justice delivery system."

Supreme Court Judge Yunus Omerjee, who read the judgement, said: "When one leaves a club one does not take its property with him or her. It has long been established as a salutary principle of law in this area of property ownership that when one or more people secede from an existing church, they have no right to claim church property even if those who remain members of the congregation are in the minority."

Speaking after the Supreme Court judgment Zimbabwe's Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, David Coltart, himself an Anglican, said: "Our prayers have been answered for the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe. I now look forward to working with them to restore sanity in their schools which have suffered so much during this period of insanity. As usual my door is open if they need help in this regard."

"We prayed, we waited and we have been vindicated," said Bishop Chad Gandiya. "This is God's doing . . . "We have been in exile for five years, but now we are going back home."

Bishop Gandiya described Monday's ruling as a "pleasant surprise" and appealed to all Anglicans to be "gracious in winning".

Of course it might be too much to expect that Kunonga will be gracious in losing. Implementing the order might not be as straight forward as issuing it.

UPDATES:

Zimbabwe: Jubilant Anglicans Return to ParishesBy Innocent Ruwende and Evelene Taadira, 26 November 2012excerpt:It was an emotional Sunday for members of the Anglican Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA) as they returned to various parishes after five years of worshipping under trees or rented premises.

This came in the wake of last week's Supreme Court ruling which gave the Harare Diocese led by Bishop Chad Gandiya control over the church's properties.The properties had been under the control of Bishop Nolbert Kunonga of the Church of the Province of Zimbabwe, who is former head of the Harare Diocese.

The Supreme Court decision ended years of feuding between the CPCA and Dr Kunonga's group and gave Anglicans the right to worship in their church buildings, and repossess other properties including schools, clinics and orphanages that had been under the control of Dr Kunonga.

Anglican Harare CPCA spokesperson Mr Precious Shumba said their members had access to all their premises and for the first time in five years conducted services in the parishes.

He said they had not met any resistance from most priests aligned to Bishop Kunonga. . .--------

Zimbabwe: Kunonga Faction Resists Eviction in Some ParishesBy Tererai Karimakwenda, 26 November 2012excerptAnglican clergy and parishioners who went back to worship in church buildings that had been seized by the former Bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga, have said for the most part parishes were peaceful but they faced resistance in some areas. . .

Peaceful services were held in many parishes, including Avondale, Cranborne, Mabelreign, Mufakose, Budiriro and Norton, where church services were conducted midweek after Kunonga's bishops and priests moved out.

But strong resistance was reported at three of Kunonga's parishes on Friday, including St Philip parish in Tafara and St James parish in Mabvuku, where Reverend Raymond Makiwa is alleged to have threatened to unleash dogs on anyone trying to evict him. . .--------

Ousted Bishop Kunonga fights backDaniel Nemukuyu and Tererai Karimakwenda, November 28, 2012excerpt[Kunonga's faction] has engaged prominent Harare lawyer Mr Jonathan Samukange of Venturas and Samukange law firm and yesterday filed two separate High Court applications to stop the pending eviction of its clergy and laity from church properties. . .--------

Friday, November 16, 2012

As Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin has reported, the Indonesian government has deployed troops to Central Sulawesi in response to a string of terrorist attacks that in have included bombings and assassinations of police officers. On 22 October, belligerents set fire to a church in Madale village on the outskirts of Poso, in what appears to be a deliberate attempt to trigger sectarian conflict. In reporting the incident the Jakarta Post noted: "A re-emergence of the conflict would also serve to fire up Muslim extremists across the country to wage war against Christians."

A bomb squad from Central Sulawesi Police disarmed a homemade bomb found in the backyard of a Poso resident's house on Thursday.

The homeowner, Yulianti, 63, who lives in the Landangan village, said she discovered the bomb in her backyard at 6:30 a.m.

[. . .]

Yulianti said the house was mostly empty the previous evening as the family had been at church.

Police have cordoned off the area where the bomb was found and have combed the area for clues. Personnel on site said the home-assembled bomb contained chemicals urea and nitrate, a detonator and a cable network.

The incident occurred on Thursday [15 Nov] at 12:15 p.m. local time. Adj. Comr. Nicklas Karauwan, the chief of police of Poso Pesisir Utara, a subdistrict located in Central Sulawesi, reportedly left his house to take the key out of a motorcycle parked in his yard. Not long after he stepped outside gunshots were heard, and the police chief ran back into his house while ducking down.

The government’s failure to thoroughly root out radicalism, coupled with alleged police brutality in counterterrorism raids, have reunited the Islamic fighters and boosted the spirit needed to radicalize traumatized residents.

[. . .]

Besides their expanding base, militants have also aggressively tried to take over mosques run by moderate Muslim groups.

Former Islamic combatant Sutami Idris, who is now a respected moderate Muslim cleric, said many mosques were struggling to prevent the infiltration.

Many moderate mosques in Poso have gradually come under the control of radical groups, Sutami said last week.

“Their movement looks to be very organized. First, they deploy their followers as ordinary congregation members to regularly attend prayers at particular mosques to gain trust.”

“Once the trust begins to develop, these people are given responsibilities, such as announcing adzan [Muslim call to prayer] and are allowed to be part of the mosques’ organizations. When this stage is reached, they begin to spread their radical ideology,” he said.

According to Sutami, radical teachings can be easily identified by the way jihad is allowed to be carried out.

“Robbing a jewelry store owned by ‘infidels’, for example, can be considered halal for these kinds of group,” Sutami said.

Sutami acknowledged that many Islamic clerics from outside Poso, particularly from Java, such as Surakarta and Semarang, had played significant roles in the radicalization movement.

[. . .]

The authorities in Poso are also worried over the inflow of former combatants of the Philippines’ Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

The Philippine government signed a peace pact with MILF last month to end decades of bloody separatism conflict. However, the combatants, who oppose the peace pact, may have traveled to Poso to help their Muslim brothers in the fight.

[. . .]

. . . the authorities have again been alerted to the inflow of extremists from Java.

According to Adnan Arsal, the leader of the Tanah Runtuh neighborhood, many clerics and militants from Java had opted to shift their jihad operations to Poso.

Militants and terrorist fugitives apparently want to create tension between Christians and Muslims in Poso in the hope of reviving the sectarian conflict. . .